There are a
thousand different humours in the mind, and about each of them,
when it is uppermost, some literature tends to be deposited. Is
this to be allowed? Not certainly in every case, and yet perhaps
in more than rigourists would fancy. It were to be desired that
all literary work, and chiefly works of art, issued from sound,
human, healthy, and potent impulses, whether grave or laughing,
humorous, romantic, or religious.
Yet it cannot be denied that some valuable books are partially
insane; some, mostly religious, partially inhuman; and very many
tainted with morbidity and impotence. We do not loathe a
masterpiece although we gird against its blemishes. We are not,
above all, to look for faults, but merits. There is no book
perfect, even in design; but there are many that will delight,
improve, or encourage the reader. On the one hand, the Hebrew
psalms are the only religious poetry on earth; yet they contain
sallies that savour rankly of the man of blood. On the other hand,
Alfred de Musset had a poisoned and a contorted nature; I am only
quoting that generous and frivolous giant, old Dumas, when I accuse
him of a bad heart; yet, when the impulse under which he wrote was
purely creative, he could give us works like Carmosine or Fantasio,
in which the last note of the romantic comedy seems to have been
found again to touch and please us.
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